[Coco] HD controllers for Coco-3

[Kip Koon]

Hi Kandur!
Back in the day I my first and only hard drive setup used a Burke and Burke
Winchester MFM Hard Drive ISA PC Card Adapter.  I had to modify the rom on
an 8-bit Winchester card that I had laying around to be able to format the
hard drive.  I ran a Seagate ST-225 MFM Hard Drive with OS-9 also.  Those
were the days!  It was running when I took it out of service, but that was
back in the 1980's.  It has been so long since I had that hard drive setup
running that I don't remember what I did with it.  Hummm...  I wonder.  
I thought I would let you know that there is a version of HDB-DOS that works
with the LR-Tech controllers.  Yep, I just double checked my HDB-DOS rom
files that get built with Toolshed and there is an hdblrtech.rom file there.
Interested?  :)  

Kip Koon
computerdoc at sc.rr.com
http://www.cocopedia.com/wiki/index.php/Kip_Koon
http://computerpcdoc.com/



-----Original Message-----
From: Coco [mailto:coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com] On Behalf Of Kandur
Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2014 10:44 PM
To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts
Subject: [Coco] HD controllers for Coco-3

I have an LR-Tech and an Owl-Ware HD controller.
On the pc board inside the Owl-Ware HD controller LR-Tech is printed.
http://qdv.pw/eng/_photos/Computers/Coco/cartridges/HD%20controller/index.ht
ml
Is there any functional difference between these controllers?
Let me quote Wilard:
"Willard Goosey | 4 Mar 08:59 2006
Re: Tandy Hard Disk Controller

>Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2006 18:31:14 -0500 (EST)
>From: "Bill Gunshannon" <billg000 at ...>

>As long as we're talking about COCO disk interfaces, anyone know 
>anythng about an OWL Interface Disk Controler?  The board inside says 
>LR Tech.  What interface is it and is it of any real use?

LR Tech is a SASI controller.  The slightly-newer Ken-Ton SCSI card is
supposedly compatible with the LR-Tech, so Ken-Ton software (SCSIsys,
Superdriver) should be able to use it.

As far as I could tell, the difference between LR-Tech SASI and actual SCSI
was that the LR-Tech didn't generate parity bits.

When I was running an LR Tech system, I was using the original software for
it, but then, I happened to have one of the supported SASI-to-MFM controller
boards around.

Willard"

Same as Willard, I used a Seagate ST-225 MFM HD in RLL mode, using an
Adaptec ACB-4070 MFM to SASI bridge board.
Later I used a pair of 104 MB CDC WREN-III SCSI drives connected directly to
them. they worked flawlessly.
There is an OS-9 HD backup set of 28, 5-1/4" diskettes, made by one of these
controllers, waiting for restoration. 
I'd like to use these controllers with my Coco-3 running NitrOS-9.
Please give me some hints, advice, how should I go about that.
You will be talking to someone, who had become a total noob after 20 years,
from being comfortable with the Cocos and OS-9. :)

Kandur

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